A shop local alternative to Amazon
National coverage of Nearby’s launch
When the pandemic hit in 2020, local merchants were struggling to keep their lights on, and people sheltering in place were no longer able to support their neighborhood shops.
Former Slack and Twitter chief product officer April Underwood joined forces with other technologists to launch a shop local alternative to Amazon starting in Oakland, our pilot market.
Nearby was an e-commerce site where shoppers could search 70+ local stores and tens of thousands of products, and add to cart. The goods showed up on their doorstep two days later.
John and Erica of Oaktown Spice Shop
The goal
Our theory was that given similar convenience, people would choose to support their local shop owners over Amazon.
And we believed we had a strong competitive edge over Amazon with our superpowers of: community and curation.
We imagined a future nationwide e-commerce site where people could shop local and also shop the best of towns around the country.
Iguehi of Love Iguehi
My role
As a senior editorial strategist for Nearby, my role was to create a content strategy from the ground up to inspire people to shop local.
This strategy proved to be foundational to our expansion, and I created a Content Playbook to train all content producers.
I also acted as the voice of the brand in our pilot market, producing content for all channels and helping earn a consumer NPS of 91.
Eric of Awaken Cafe
Key messages
In all of our communications, we drove home the key messages of convenience, curation, and community:
We make shopping local easy.
We uncover the best products in the Bay.
We help you choose community over corporations.
Our slogan was “Keep Oakland Alive” – which evoked Town pride and galvanized people to join the movement to support local.
Angela of Oaklandish
Merchant storytelling
To inspire people to choose local, Nearby’s content strategy centered on championing merchants and bringing their backstories and products to life.
Our merchant interviews helped people establish an emotional connection with the shop owners and get to know their distinct point of view.
Each shop profile felt like a unique piece of Oakland culture, with photography that captured the feeling of walking into their store.
Candice of Candid Art
Other projects
A few other projects I worked on:
Featured local merchants’ best-selling goods in a Holiday Gift Guide.
Drove urgency with timely blog content surfacing unique local products.
Curated the homepage based on sales data + an Oakland POV.
Brett and April of Nearby
Collaborators and stakeholders
I reported to founder April Underwood, former CPO for Slack and Twitter, and collaborated cross functionally with the head of product, local GMs in our pilot markets, two engineers, the lead designer, two growth marketers, and a community manager.
Results & Twitter acquisition
Nearby saw huge success in 2020 with Oaklanders spending over $100K on their local shops in our first three months.
We helped many merchants survive the pandemic, and gained $20M in backing by investors like GV, Obvious Ventures, Redpoint, and Ashton Kutcher.
A portion of Nearby's team (myself included) was acquired by Twitter in 2021 to join the Twitter Shopping and SMB teams.